The Magic Kingdom
by JinnySkeans
Summary: "It's a week in Disney World, Sasuke!" she laughed. "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" Plenty, Sakura. Plenty. Sequel to Catch You Later.
1. Once Upon a Dream

"All right, let's see," Sakura said thoughtfully, examining the contents of her suitcase with a discerning eye. "A week in Disney World. A week in Florida. Which, according to annual weather reports and hitting the refresh button six times an hour on the Weather Channel website, promises nothing but 70-degree days and slightly cooler nights. BITCHING."

"I'll say," Ino replied from behind her, elbow-deep in her own suitcase. Well, one of her suitcases out of the six she planned on bringing. "Think we should bring bathing suits?"

"Absolutely. It might get warm enough to go swimming. And if you don't bring your bathing suit, you will be that weird girl who has to wear underwear and a T-shirt in the pool like a homeless man."

"When you're right, you're right, Forehead."

Finals were over. The excitement in the air was literally tangible; most everyone they knew would be going home for winter break. It was mid-December, a few days from Christmas. Grades had been posted, and Sakura, despite her neuroses that threatened to require hospitalization sometimes, was pleased with the spotless 4.0 GPA she'd managed to pull off that first semester.

Knowing that she wasn't going to fail all of her classes, be thrown out of college, and wind up on the streets alone and friendless and hungry, Sakura was really able to get into the whole going-on-vacation thing.

Especially when that vacation was going to be in _Disney World._

"I can't believe you convinced Sasuke to come along," Ino said slyly, tossing an array of shiny bikinis into her overstuffed suitcase. "After the last vacation we went on together, I figured he'd've had enough. What'd you threaten him with? No sex till he says yes?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Please. The arrogant pancreas would know the whole time I couldn't withhold sex from him. I'm a bitch, not a martyr."

Ino laughed.

"I just pointed out the merits of going on vacation with his girlfriend and friends like a normal human being," Sakura said with dignity. "And I did so at my sexiest, turning him on and brainwashing him into complying with my wishes. And he shall do my bidding."

"Say that again," a dark voice snapped from behind, and both girls whipped around to see Sasuke standing in the open doorway, his arms crossed. The expression on his face was angry, but he'd long since lost his ability to intimidate his girlfriend with something as trite and fleeting as anger.

Instead, she smiled beautifully at him, crossed the room in two strides, and kissed him sweetly on the corner of his mouth. "Hey, there, gorgeous," she said happily. It was impossible to ruffle her mood now, not with the prospect of boarding a plane to Disney World in just 24 short hours. Sasuke could probably get away with punching her in the face at this point, and in her good mood, she'd let it slide.

He glared at her slightly before taking a seat in her wooden desk chair, keeping his arms crossed. "What time is our flight?" he asked glumly.

"Ten pm, it's a red-eye," Sakura replied, returning to her packing. "You'll be able to sleep the whole time, and pretend that you're not as excited about this as everyone else is, like a proper misanthrope."

"What's there to be _excited_ about. This is gonna cost me a fortune."

"Oh please, I bought your plane ticket."

"Yeah, and you let me pay for the hotel room," Sasuke snapped back irritably.

Sakura raised a slim eyebrow in subtle threat. "Yes I did, since you're the loaded boyfriend," she said coldly. "But if you really want, I can room with Ino or Hinata, and you can enjoy that expensive hotel room _alone._"

"If you think for one second that that sounds like a threat, you're losing your touch," Sasuke replied nastily.

"A threat? Not at all. Call it a promise, asshole."

"You know what?" Ino snapped. "We all thought this choking-on-sexual-tension thing you two have had going for sixty years now would disappear when you finally got together."

Sasuke rolled his eyes; Sakura ignored her. But the idea of Sasuke being so repellant to their vacation wasn't one she particularly enjoyed, so she changed tack.

"You've never been there," she pointed out to him. "I know it sounds like a kiddie vacation…"

"It is," he interjected.

"…but I promise you it's really, really awesome. We're gonna have a great time, and we'll be back before Christmas. And we can spend a whole month at your apartment, engaging in sex marathons and I will cook for you, mhmm, and you will admit to me that I am supreme overlord of vacations and recreation. Capisce?"

"Well, I wouldn't say all that," Ino pointed out. "To be fair, we all plan on invading Sasuke's apartment over break as much as possible, so…"

"Oh, yes, there IS that to consider," Sakura amended, while Sasuke's expression turned murderous.

"I want none of you assholes in my apartment," he snapped. "Ever."

"Are you all packed up?" Sakura asked, deciding to head off what was sure to be a very long, very mean discussion between her best friend and her boyfriend before it started.

"Aa."

"Toothbrush, toothpaste, carry-on bag with no liquids in it more than three ounces? Does your suitcase weigh less than 50 pounds, so we don't have to pay any fees? Do…"

"I've been on vacation before," he said icily. "This is not my first time."

"That's what she said," Sakura and Ino declared in perfect unison.

Sasuke stood up and stalked to the door, clearly in no mood to hear anymore of their two-headed nonsense. Sakura called out behind him, "Don't forget, we're all having dinner at Zorba's tonight."

His answer was a careless middle finger before he stomped out of the room to go brood in some corner. Sakura rolled her eyes and went back to her packing.

Sasuke would just have to get over himself, and embrace the inevitability that they were going.

And if he didn't?

She smirked. He would have an entire sexless month of winter vacation to look forward to.

Aw, yeah.

* * *

Sasuke stalked down to the Greek restaurant alone and thoroughly pissed off. It was cold, which pissed him off more, and he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket.

Florida _was_ pretty balmy this time of year…

Angry, he shook his head, pissed at himself for even considering one tiny plus to a trip full of minuses. He didn't want to do this, why the hell was he supposed to go along with every stupid idea Sakura had just because she said so?

_When did I lose all of my willpower?_ he thought, casting a glance up at the dark sky, and noting to himself that it looked almost like it might snow. The wind whipped his messy hair back and forth and stung the bare skin of his face. _I used to have a spine. And an opinion. But that crazy little maniac took all of that away. And I let her! Who the hell AM I lately?_

Despite all the fun times he'd had over the summer, and the excellent outcome of getting the most infuriating, most beautiful girlfriend in the universe at the end of it, it hadn't been without struggle. The road trip continued to haunt his nightmares even months later. He wasn't too eager to hand Sakura the reins of his vacation all over again, and let her drive everyone right off a cliff directly into the gaping pits of hell.

Second thoughts at this point, though, were useless. There was zero sense in trying to talk himself out of it, because Sakura had the ace; under no circumstances would he let her travel that far away without him. She was entirely too flighty, entirely too _flirty_, and entirely too naïve to take care of herself in a foreign land.

Even if that foreign land was like, Disney World or whatever.

At least, he reasoned, it was just for a week. A week, he could potentially handle. It wasn't the entire winter vacation. And he had a whole month with no school, no work, and no sports afterwards to decompress from whatever torture Sakura and the others were going to subject him to.

If she thought he was letting her out of the bed for any reason at that point, she was mistaken. Dark eyes flashed and he smirked at the possibilities one long, uninterrupted month held for them.

Plus, it would be much warmer in Florida than it was here. He felt tears burn in his eyes at the bitter cold, unseasonable even for Konoha, whose balmy climate rarely dipped below freezing like it was doing now. Just getting away from the cold for awhile seemed worth it.

"Hello, Uchiha," a voice called from nearby. Sasuke looked up and saw Sai coming towards him, bundled up in a thick coat, pale skin almost translucent in the darkness. Sai was weird, had been since high school, but was still a friend; his desire to become more personable led to his asking to come along on their trip. Sasuke disliked being studied all the time, but Sai was always good for a laugh. His social ineptitude landed him in more than a few hilarious predicaments, and Sasuke wasn't above deriving odious enjoyment from him.

"Hn," he replied in greeting as Sai fell into step beside him. With finals over, the streets on campus were crowded with partygoers celebrating the end of a semester and the beginning of vacation before they all headed back home. It was beginning to feel like Christmas more or less, or at least as Christmasy as Sasuke Uchiha ever felt in the first place. (Not very.)

"You are all ready to leave tomorrow night?" Sai asked him in an effort to be polite. His speech sounded like something from a different time, or planet, but Sasuke had long since grown used to it. Sai was, for all intents and purposes, a Martian, with absolutely no grasp on human nature or relationships despite an eagerness to learn.

"Yeah," he replied, his teeth chattering in the chill. Florida was starting to look more and more appealing, not that he would ever, ever, ever admit that to his smug, know-it-all, overenthusiastic girlfriend. "You?"

"Ugly stopped by my dorm earlier to harass me into finishing my packing," Sai explained. "She threatened to leave me behind if I was not fully ready to go by the end of the night."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "She keeps pounding you for calling her that. Why haven't you figured that out yet?"

Sai turned to him with his brow furrowed in thought. "For calling her 'ugly?'"

"Aa." Sasuke was all for tearing Sakura Haruno down a few pegs every now and then, but casting aspersions on her looks was ridiculous. You could easily mock her temper, or her impulsiveness, or her neuroses, or her competitive streak, or her rotten attitude, or her inability to hold her liquor…but her appearance?

"But I was under the impression that close friends gave one another nicknames that were an ironic opposite of how they are actually viewed?"

Sasuke paused midstep, frowning. "You mean…this whole time you've been calling her 'ugly,' you've really been saying she's…?"

"Pretty. Beautiful. I think they call it, smoking hot. Plus she has a navel piercing, which leads me to believe she is promiscuous as well, though she heartily disagrees whenever I suggest this to her."

Sasuke might normally be threatened or pissed by another guy calling his grilfriend pretty, beautiful, smoking hot, but coming from Sai, who was about as much competition as a garden gnome, it was only hilarious. To think that Sakura took so much offense to a nickname for so many years, when all along Sai had meant it as an ill-conceived _compliment?_

"Does Sakura not know that custom?" Sai asked. "Should I explain? Perhaps that will reduce the number of times she punches my face…"

"Do me a favor," Sasuke said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice, "and don't ever tell her."

Feeling decidedly better about his Christmas fate, Sasuke made his way with Sai to Zorba's, their group's favorite Greek restaurant, and once they were inside and seated at their usual round table to wait for the others, he'd quite forgotten his irritation with the situation altogether.

It was warm and it was sunny in Florida. Sai was mentally terrorizing his girlfriend. He was sold.

* * *

"I just don't know why we couldn't eat at Ichiraku's!" Naruto was (whining) saying as they stepped inside the restaurant. It was busy and very warm, a stark contrast to the freezing cold streets, and Hinata was happy to be inside. "It's an _institution!_"

She giggled and squeezed his hand. "It won't k-kill you, Naruto," she said. "Oh, look! Sai and S-Sasuke are already here. Guess we're early!"

Five months into her first relationship, a semester of college under her belt, and bolstered by a group of rowdy, obnoxious assholes she called friends, Hinata Hyuuga felt like an entirely different person nowadays. Her stammer was almost completely eradicated, she was in a committed relationship with the boy she'd loved since _forever,_ and she loved her nursing major.

She could say she was pretty satisfied with her life right now. It would be an understatement.

Sakura and Ino's insane idea to go all the way to Disney World for their Christmas vacation was just the icing on the cake of a really fantastic year. After having such a fabulous time on the summer road trip, any chance to go anywhere with her dickhead friends and whiny boyfriend was readily accepted.

And Hinata hadn't been to Disney World since she was three.

With everything going so right lately, though, it was impossible for her practical side to wonder when the other shoe was going to drop.

One person shouldn't get to have _everything_ they wanted in life, right?

Recognizing the creeping pessimism, she shook it off and held Naruto's hand even tighter. His grumpy expression at being denied his favorite cheap ramen that they were all sick of already disappeared, and he grinned toothily at her before kissing her sloppily right in front of Sasuke and Sai.

She heard Sasuke scoff in disgust, followed by Sai's creepy inquiry, "I read that it is highly inappropriate for a couple to engage in grandiose public displays of affection…does this mean that you and I should join in, Uchiha? So as to dispel any awkwardness?"

Naruto pulled away from the kiss first to yell, "EW, you dirty voyager! Keep your mitts off me!"

"I think you mean 'voyeur,' Naruto," a fifth voice interjected, and Hinata looked up to see Sakura and Ino, smirks on their faces as they shrugged off their coats, Kiba and Shikamaru right behind them. Sakura had spoken; she seemed to derive a rather primitive pleasure in correcting Naruto's sloppy grammar and diction at every turn. She saw Hinata and smiled. "Hey, boo. How'd your bio final go?"

"Pretty good, I think," Hinata mused, extracting herself from Naruto's vice-like grip (reluctantly) and taking a seat at the table. "Yours?"

"I know I made one fatal mistake," Sakura sighed. She greeted Sasuke with a chaste kiss to the cheek (weirdly, Sasuke and Sakura never made the PDA mistake she and Naruto couldn't seem to avoid) and sat beside him. "I used 'protoplasm' in place of 'cytoplasm.'"

"Hn," Sasuke muttered. "They're the same thing."

"They are not," Sakura argued. "Are you done packing?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes in exaggerated annoyance before returning his attention to the menu in front of him. "You asked me that already, woman."

Hinata giggled. Like everyone else, she was amused by Sasuke and Sakura's bizarre but very much loving relationship; their arguments had not diminished over time, contrary to the popular theory that once they finally banged and got it over with, they'd get along a lot better.

Meanwhile, she'd never really fought with Naruto. Not seriously, anyway.

Nor, and she hadn't admitted this to _anyone_ yet, had she banged him either.

She wasn't really sure why they were waiting. The conversation never really came up, and Naruto was playful, sweet, and funny, but he wasn't as sexually voracious as Sasuke, or as outright horny and demanding as Kiba. If anything, he was a little shy, and Hinata was shy, too. It wasn't that she wasn't interested, just that she'd prefer Naruto to make the first move, but he seemed too frightened to do it.

_It's not like I'm unhappy with it,_ she thought, trying to be reasonable, even as she watched Sasuke's subtle interaction with Sakura next to her. They weren't affectionate in public besides occasionally holding hands, but there was a palpable heat between them; she'd seen the way Sasuke looked at Sakura ever since high school, like it was all he could do not to just throw her on the table and go to town on her. _But still, it would be nice to have that kind of connection with Naruto. I wouldn't mind him looking at me that way._

Sitting at the table, debating what kind of Greek delicacy she would be having for dinner, she paused to consider her life.

Hinata Hyuuga. 19. The girlfriend of Naruto Uzumaki. A successful nursing student. A good friend.

…a virgin.

Okay, so maybe not _everything_ in her life was going perfectly.

* * *

Now that everyone had arrived, Naruto grinned and stood up, tapping his fork against his glass of water to get everyone's attention. Seven pairs of eyes turned to him as he announced, "All right, y'all! Listen up! Our first semester of college is officially _over!_"

The girls cheered, Kiba and Shikamaru high-fived, and even Sasuke smirked a little smugly. It was impossible not to feel somewhat proud of themselves for surviving the first semester.

"Which means…our second annual vacation extravaganza is about to commence!"

"While I'm thrilled at how many words you're adding to your vocabulary," Sakura chimed in, a playful smile on her face, "'annual' means 'once a year.' And it's only been a few months since our road trip."

"Oh whatever, Sakura!" Naruto laughed, his spirits too high to let anything really bother him, even Sakura's anal-retentive need to correct his diction at every turn. "Anyway, in 26 hours, we will all be on a plane headed to…drumroll please…"

"We already know where we're going, you ape," Shikamaru muttered, rolling his eyes.

"_Quiet, asshole!_ WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!"

His friends were all jerks who couldn't possibly let him have one single good speech, but he would have the last laugh when he was president someday. And they would have no choice but to listen to all of his speeches because he would be _president._ And it was totally treason or whatever not to listen to the president's speeches. Grinning, he turned to his lovely future First Lady and high-fived her.

A high-five seemed a poor substitute for what Naruto _really_ wanted from her, but whenever he thought about asking her, he would be too embarrassed to finish the question. And yeah, making out with her was _awesome,_ but five months later…weren't they like, way overdue?

To…you know.

He couldn't even finish the thought in his own _head_ without blushing like some shy, inexperienced virgin. And yeah, okay, maybe that was a pretty accurate description, but damn it, he wanted to be the one to put the rubberband on the doorknob for once, and have _Sasuke_ find somewhere else to sleep.

Which was exactly why this trip came at a perfect time.

He would have a hotel room all alone with Hinata. And hopefully, being in a different country and environment, he would find some kind of insane courage inside to actually broach the subject of doing…you know…with his girlfriend.

The grin on his face was immovable. His plan was foolproof. What girl, even a classy, well-bred _Hyuuga_, could resist the sensual eroticism of _It's a Small World?_

See? Foolproof.

"So are all of us packed up?" he demanded. "I've been packed since the day the girls told me we were going."

"Fucking loser," Sasuke scoffed. "You had nothing better to do all this time?"

"SHUT UP! Answer the question!"

"I'm all done," Hinata said sweetly. At least _one_ of his friends could be a decent person every now and again.

"Samesies," Sakura chimed in, playing with her long pink hair. "I'm bringing sunscreen, too. And you're all wearing it. I don't want to have to rub aloe on the charred red skin of you negligent assholes."

"I'm not done," Ino said. "I don't have to be done, either. I do what I want."

Naruto sighed, and decided that he didn't care to hear anymore answers. He wouldn't let his jerk friends ruin his mood, not with only one day left till _Disney._

Regardless of what shittyass dramatic fuckery of epic proportions was inevitably going to befall their group, regardless of he would finally let Hinata make a man out of him in a cheap Disney hotel room, regardless of what harebrained shenanigans he would take part in or even if he would make it back to Japan _alive,_ he knew one thing for sure:

This trip was going to be fucking _killer._

* * *

__**note..** i said i would! i lost power at my place last night, so any plans i had for getting this out then were scrapped. but yeah, i hope you enjoy it all the same! i think it can function as a stand-alone story, but if you haven't read Catch You Later yet, i'd recommend it. (because i wrote it and i'm a shameless self-promoter and what have you.)

ANYWAY. let me know what you think! OR HOW WILL I KNOW IF YOU LIKE IT OR HATE IT OR WHATEVER. this is the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship, this story and me. BE FRIENDS WITH US.

love you!

xoxo daisy :)


	2. You Can Fly

It was late. It was dark. The wind howled outside against his glass windows, and the heater underneath hummed a lullaby. The blankets he was curled up underneath were warm and everything about Sasuke's life was going well at the moment.

With one five-foot-two, pink-haired exception.

Sakura wouldn't stay still beside him. It was getting on his nerves.

"Psst," she whispered to his back, and he growled under his breath, pointedly ignoring her. "_Psst,_ Sasuke!"

When he still didn't respond, she shouted, "I SAID, PSST, YOU ASSHOLE!"

He sat up in fury, whirled around to face her, and snapped, "I fucking heard you, you nut ass bitch! What the hell do you want?"

"I'm too excited to sleep," Sakura replied gleefully, looking supremely unconcerned with how she was interrupting his slumber or getting on his nerves, as she smiled up at him from her side of the bed.

"Sakura," Sasuke murmured darkly, "if you don't _shut the hell up_, I'm gonna throw you out of the plane tomorrow night."

She just giggled, sending his already bad mood plummeting even further, and he turned away from her again.

Sakura demanded attention, however, and just when he closed his eyes again, he felt a slender leg slide across his waist and looked up to see her straddling him, long pink hair tickling his chest, a mischievous smile on her face that both aroused and unnerved him.

"You're so lame," she teased, as he felt a familiar warmth of attraction steal through his stomach at her promiscuous gestures. "Your smoking hot girlfriend's sleeping over, telling you she can't sleep, and you're too naïve to put two and two together?"

"You're nowhere near as hot as you think you are," Sasuke lied, closing his eyes even though the sight above him was particularly delightful. You couldn't fault him for being tired; Sakura was something of a wildcat in bed, and they'd already gone a few rounds. If she wanted more from him, tough. She would have to wait until morning, when he regained some of the feeling in his…

"Dick," Sakura whined, rolling off of him, put out at not being allowed to put out. Sasuke smirked, content that she couldn't see it in the dark, and slung an arm across her shoulders so they could finally sleep. "I said I can't sleep! I'm too excited, yafeelme? I want to ride a motherfucking roller coaster. Since I can't ride you right now."

He snorted. "It's gonna be Disney roller coasters. Fucking lame."

"They are not lame!" Sakura hissed into his collar bone, even as she traced an affectionate circle over his abdomen with her fingers, simultaneously pissed off and cuddly the way he liked her best. "You've never even _been_ there. You have no idea what it's like. You can't even _imagine._ It's almost wasted words trying to explain to you how awesome it's gonna be. I went with Ino and her family when we were really little…it was so much fun. Like, to an absurd degree."

Sasuke was annoyed without really having a legitimate reason to be. For some reason, Disney World always conjured up images of the traditional nuclear family, a loving mother and an indulgent father, two happy siblings and laughter and things Sasuke simply didn't _have_ anymore. He hadn't had the chance to go with his parents when he was a kid, and now they weren't around. He'd go on a thousand vacations, but there was something about Disney World that made him feel…short-changed.

Not that he ever planned on telling Sakura that. But she was always annoyingly perceptive about that sort of thing in a roundabout kind of way.

"I remember coming home after the trip was over," she said quietly, and when he glanced down at where she lay in the crook of his arm, her face illuminated by the muted TV hanging on the wall, he saw that her gaze was suddenly wistful, far-away, where he couldn't reach her. "I told my mom and dad all about it, I was so excited…I asked them if we could go the following summer, as a family."

Here she paused, and Sasuke could finish the story in his head. He knew about Sakura's home life before Konoha University, and her nonexistent relationship with her parents. Obviously, Sakura never went to Disney World with her family.

"That's part of why I'm so excited about this trip," she continued, and he heard the smile in her voice without needing to check. "I never got to go with my parents…but you guys are my family now. You and Ino and Hinata and Naruto and everyone else…so it's kind of like a family trip anyways. Like Hinata would be the mom, and Naruto would be the…well, I guess not dad, because he can't do anything right…he'd be the…goldfish?"

Sasuke snorted, half-amused by this new game she'd invented of assigning a different familial role to all of their friends, and half-moved at how deeply Sakura cared about all of them, to the point of supplementing her own parents with her closest friends. He felt a rush of affection, and realized that he had done the same thing.

He DID have a family. They both did.

"Kiba would definitely be the…"

"Dog," Sasuke finished curtly, and Sakura laughed.

"Exactly! And you'd be…um…the weird uncle."

"Huh."

"Yeah, the weird uncle who never really talked to anybody. Just everyone kind of like, knew about him. And he was mega rich and junk, but never shared his money."

"Go to bed, Sakura."

"And I'd have to be the…"

"Pet monkey."

"SASUKE NO. YOU KNOW MONKEYS SCARE ME HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT."

Sakura Haruno was lucky that she was pretty. This was Sasuke's only thought as he pulled his pillow over his ears and tuned out whatever the hell else she was screaming about with the seasoned apathy of a pro.

* * *

"Ino I'm not carrying all this shit. You don't need all this, put it back."

"Kiba," she snapped back, her tone threatening, "I need these things. You like me to be beautiful for you, don't you? Well it takes work, thanks very much. Get moving, packmule."

He glared at her, but he didn't seem to have much success in intimidating her into submission. He'd made the mistake of going crazy for an alpha female who reeked of expensive perfume and a completely undeserved sense of entitlement, and now had to live with the consequences.

"If you need all this shit to be beautiful, does it even count?" he groaned.

The look in Ino's icy blue eyes promised agony, so he shut his mouth and started loading things into the back of the rental van.

Things were going south with Ino lately. It was a lot less fucking and a lot more fighting, a lot less cuddling and a lot more arguing, a lot less connecting and a lot more carrying her shit all over the universe. And it was starting to grate on his nerves, because the thing with Ino (he never really called it a relationship, and neither did she) was never intended to be anything but a fun escape for both of them.

He cared about her a lot, and knew she cared about him. It was just getting harder and harder to actually _try_, because was this really worth trying _for?_

Maybe a few days in sunny Florida would improve his mood.

"Hey guys!"

He looked up and saw that Sakura had arrived with Sasuke. She was wheeling her own suitcase behind her and wearing a gorgeous smile.

"Damn it, Ino!" Kiba snapped. "Sakura can pull her own damn luggage, why can't you?"

"Don't you dare compare me to another girl, you ape!" Ino screeched.

Kiba growled under his breath. If he had any sense, at _all,_ he would turn around, grab the rest of his shit, and head back to his mother's house for the winter. This trip was going to ruin his life, if Ino didn't do it first.

But because Kiba didn't have any sense, and the prospect of hooking up with his infuriating girl in the warmth and sun of a foreign country was too good to pass up, he merely mumbled an apology and boarded the van like an obedient puppy.

* * *

"I'M READY!" Naruto roared, to general annoyance. His feet crunched through the snow as he carried his knapsack to the van. "LET'S GET MOVING!"

"We're all ready, you idiot," snapped Sasuke from the driver's seat. Sakura sat beside him, her face lit up; everyone else was piled in the back, the only available seat between Hinata and Sai.

"HEY, BABY!" he shouted to his girlfriend, even though he'd seen her about three minutes ago. He flopped into the seat next to her and kissed her on the cheek, making her giggle and Ino fake-barf into her purse.

Since coming back from the single greatest road trip in the history of the road, Naruto Uzumaki wanted nothing more than to repeat the experience. And since such an adventure couldn't possibly be duplicated, he would have to settle for the next best thing: a brand new adventure.

"Why does Sasuke get to drive?" he demanded, just to pick a fight. "I wanted to drive!"

"You drive us all crazy," Shikamaru pointed out lazily. Behind him, Ino giggled.

Sasuke seemed to lose patience with everyone, and didn't bother asking if they were ready before he pulled out of the parking spot. Naruto rolled his eyes, but let it go. Sasuke's temper hadn't improved since he'd started dating Sakura, unfortunately, and his patience was at an all-time low.

But coming on this trip with everyone, Sasuke tipped his hand. Because all of them knew Sasuke Uchiha never did _anything_ he didn't feel like doing. He could kick up a fuss all he wanted to, but there was absolutely no denying the fact that he would never set one foot on the airplane if he didn't expressly want to go.

"I'm so excited, Naruto!" Hinata said happily beside him, bouncing in her seat. Her hair was a few inches longer than it had been over the summer, and brushed her shoulders now. In the adorable little ski jacket she was wearing, and the fearlessly happy smile on her face that seemed to light her up from within, he thought she was the prettiest girl in the universe.

"Me, too!" he exclaimed, slinging an arm around her shoulders. Feeling a bit brave at the moment, he leaned in to whisper in her ear, "And I'm really excited to get back to the hotel room, if you know what I mean."

Hinata's head whipped around, cheeks scarlet, eyes wide with shock, and immediately, Naruto regretted his flash decision to tease her. He pulled back nervously and said a bit too loudly, "YOU KNOW, TO LIKE CHECK FOR URINE AND BLOOD AND SEMEN ON THE HOTEL BEDSPREADS LIKE ON LAW AND ORDER WITH A BLACKLIGHT."

The entire van, which had been full of individual conversations, went silent and all eyes swiveled to Naruto. Sasuke, smirking from the driver's seat, met his best friend's gaze in the rearview mirror and quipped, "Smooth, moron."

The awkwardness was inescapable as Sasuke turned onto the freeway, but it was Sakura, sweet, angelic, sometimes scary Sakura, who showed mercy on Naruto, and changed the subject.

"Remember it's gonna be warmer when we get there," she said to everyone in the van. "Did everyone pack something light to change into when we land?"

"Yes, Mom!" seven other voices chorused, and at Sakura's sour expression, Naruto laughed and decided to ignore the sexual tension that existed between himself and Hinata for the time being.

Sasuke's smug remark at his profound lack of game rang in his ears the whole way to the airport.

* * *

She knew it was way too good to be true.

Naruto was a gentleman, arguably to a fault, and as a result, in the five months it had been since their relationship had begun, he had drawn the line at kissing. Hinata didn't want to overdramatize, but she was starting to take it personally.

Sipping a caramel latte in the airport Starbucks as they waited for their flight to begin boarding, she wondered if maybe he just didn't find her attractive enough to want to bang her.

_That's silly,_ she chastised herself, surreptitiously eyeing the way Ino was flirting like mad with Kiba at the counter. _He finds me attractive enough to kiss me, and go out with me for months. How would that be any different?_

She'd thought Naruto's sly remark in the van was an invitation. Until he'd revealed that all he _really_ wanted to do in the hotel room was run a blacklight over the surface of the bed to check for semen splatters. Typical Naruto, and she loved him, of course, but really. _Really._

She knew she was spending way, way too much time on her sexual frustration, and nowhere near enough on preparing herself for the ten-hour flight, but there was only so much a girl could take before she really lost it.

Would it kill them to take things a step further?

Sakura seemed to have no trouble with Sasuke, and for a very long time, Hinata wondered if Sasuke even possessed hormones, given his utter immunity to everyone from the opposite race. But with the right girl, he transformed into this aggressive, raging human fuckmachine, and judging by the way Sakura never _really_ stopped smiling for too long, she assumed it worked out well for them.

Kiba and Ino were even worse. Their relationship was almost a caricature of Sasuke and Sakura's, wherein _literally_ their only interactions with one another were either mean, nasty fights or relentless hook-ups. But they were bonding sexually, weren't they? In a relationship no one thought would survive the summer at that.

And Hinata loved Naruto. She wanted to be connected to him in every way she could, including…_intimately._

She had a week in sunny Florida to make it happen. All Hinata wanted for Christmas was for her man to make a woman out of her.

Even thinking it in her head had her blushing so bad, she almost became a puddle of Hinata faint on the linoleum airport floor.

"Flight 712 to Orlando, Florida, now boarding," a cool female operator announced over the intercom. Hinata's stomach flipped as Naruto grabbed her hand, handsome face full of childish joy.

"Let's go, babe!" he exclaimed. "I wanna get front-row seats!"

"They're assigned, you moron," Sasuke snapped, his arm slung across a dizzily happy Sakura's shoulders, half because he didn't want any young guy in the vicinity to look twice at her, half to keep her from dancing around the lobby like a toddler, and embarrassing him.

"They know I'm gonna be _president,_ right? And the president can sit wherever the hell he wants."

"According to FAA restrictions," Sai recited blandly as they made their way to the terminal, tickets in hand, "without the express consent of the individual to whom the desired seat is assigned, seat switching is prohibited and failure to observe the law is punishable by imprisonment in a federal institution."

"So by all means, Naruto," Kiba sneered.

Hinata giggled. She was over-thinking, of course. So what if the time hadn't come for her yet? It didn't make her relationship with Naruto any less rewarding, did it? No, certainly not.

And when the time _did_ come, she promised to be ready for it.

Patient. Demure. Ladylike.

As she boarded the airplane behind her overeager boyfriend who demanded to sit at the front of coach, she wondered if doing it in the airplane bathroom was punishable by imprisonment in a federal institution. (She'd look good in orange. At least to Naruto.)

* * *

Shikamaru tried his best to slow down his heartrate, but nothing was working.

Shaking hands made sure his seatbelt was fastened; it was the sixth time he'd checked, and the sixth time he'd noted the futility of such a precaution. _If the plane blows up in midair, what the hell is a seatbelt gonna do besides hold me still as I burned?_

It was a secret he'd told no one ever, because Shikamaru normally couldn't be bothered to give enough fucks to succumb to something like _fear._ To everyone's knowledge and awareness, he was way too lazy to be afraid of anything. Fear required an emotional investment, and after eighteen years of sloth, he simply didn't think it was worth it.

Except for one thing:

Flying.

His seatmate Sai wasn't helping anything, either. Instead of trying to take a nap or listening to music or something normal, Sai seemed content to list all of the possible dangers traveling on an airplane presented.

"Oh, look," he was saying mildly at the moment. "Naruto is seated at the emergency exit. In the event of a necessary evacuation, he will be the one in charge of opening the hatch and ensuring that we are all spared agonizing deaths."

_Mother of God,_ thought Shikamaru with dread. His salvation was _Naruto?_ Of course he would die. They all would die. No survivors.

"All right folks, welcome aboard Transcendental Airlines, Flight 712," a detached voice sounded from the cockpit, and Shikamaru, realizing takeoff was near, almost threw up in anxiety. "This is your captain speaking. Please make sure seatbelts are fastened securely and all handheld devices are turned off, we're getting ready to take off."

"Put it away, you moron, you tryna get us all killed?" Shikamaru heard Sasuke hiss from the front, and when he glanced down the aisle, he saw that Naruto was talking loudly on a cell phone. His stomach churned and he compulsively checked his seatbelt for a seventh time. Then an eighth, because seven was an odd number, and therefore unlucky.

"It'll be a ten-hour flight to Orlando," the pilot continued. "We're looking at clear skies all the way. In the event of an emergency…"

Shikamaru listened intently for valuable, life-saving information.

"…put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye."

His jaw dropped, and others, who caught the joke, burst out laughing; he found absolutely nothing funny about the situation. Asshole pilot. Asshole flight attendants. Asshole passengers.

"Perhaps he is inebriated?" Sai suggested helpfully. "That would certainly explain his lighthearted attitude. Ugly tells me that sometimes, people will become intoxicated with alcohol to calm themselves down. I have learned that Ugly is an alcoholic who self-medicates…perhaps she is of the same temperament as our pilot?"

The idea that his seatmate was an oblivious dickbag, Naruto would be in charge of saving them all in the event of an emergency, and a pilot with a temper like Sakura Haruno's would be delivering them to their destination led Shikamaru to one obvious, inescapable inclusion.

This was how he died.

There would be no surviving this.

You would think he would have learned his lesson over the summer, chasing his dream girl around the world at great personal risk.

Eyes flickering to the back of Ino's magnificent blonde head as a panic attack set in, he realized that his genius IQ was worthless. He was about to make the same mistake all over again.

30,000 feet in the air.

For ten hours.

Next to _Sai._

He pictured the gravestone in his head:

HERE LIES SHIKAMARU

AN IDIOT WHO DESERVED WHAT HE GOT

NARUTO WAS RESPONSIBLE. PUNISH NARUTO.

Then there was the screech of tires as the plane tilted towards the runway; the lights flickered out, plunging them all into complete darkness, and Shikamaru did the most logical thing.

He pulled a Hinata and passed the fuck out as the plane took off into the night sky.

* * *

**note..** back! next chapter: they arrive. promise i won't make you wait as long ;)

some foreshadowing here as well. for anyone who's wondering about why shikamaru's coming along.

let me know how i did? i love hearing from you guys. thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! made me a happy little ladybug.

xoxo daisy :)


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